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General Overview: In order to end a great war between a land called Wischtech and a country called Szaalanden. The emperor of Szaalanden sent 14 young hero's on a mission to defeat Wischtech, giving each a lance. Three would die along the way. Four betray the group. Seven achieved their mission and returned as heroes. Getting wealth and power as their reward.

Now twenty years have passed, and the lances of betrayal have reappeared in the border lands. A mysterious young swordsman named Koinzell suddenly appears and kills an entire group of their soldiers. Who is he? What is his goal? You'll have to read to find out.

Category Ratings: (1-10 scale)

Art:7
Ubel Blatt's art is a mixed bag. The actions, attacks, and monsters are all very well drawn. Most characters look quite good but there is a lot of repetition in their features, hair and facial features in particular. This leads to new characters looking a lot like old ones with a slightly different outfits and haircuts. The backgrounds don't really stand out as good or bad. The artist clearly doesn't put much effort into them most of the time, but it doesn't really hinder his storytelling so i won't penalize him too much for it.

Plot:9
This is a plot driven manga with no shortage of surprises and plot twists. Koinzell's deep tragic story serves as an excellent driving force for it. Though be warned, due to the dark nature of the story humorous moments are few and far between in this particular manga.

Characters:7
The characters are, for the most part, excellent. Like many other fantasy manga's Ubel Blatt is not at all shy about using stereotypes, but the author makes sure there is an emotional under layer that keeps the characters compelling and helps you get attached to them.

The villains in this tale are a different matter though, they don't seem to get much depth at all and many seem to be driven by nothing more than the author's need for them to be bad guys.

Theme:9
At first glance you would think the main theme is "revenge" but i think "betrayal" is more accurate. Revenge suggests the desire to get even or inflict suffering on those who wronged you, but that isn't what Ubel Blatt is about at all. There is much more sadness to Koinzell than there is anger.

Originality:8
The author really does a good job of creating a world for the events of the story to take place in. The plot and the way the story is told are also rather creative. I can't say more without spoilers, naturally.

Overall: 8
This is good manga with great story telling and a lot of action. It's story is rather dark though and lacks humor. I recommend it for those who are fans of Berserk, they have certain thematic elements in common.

Spoiler: Manga's images taken from earlier chapters to avoid spoiler, generally the art improves show

Re: Ubel Blatt

i tried once to read it, but i don`t know why, this series just didn`t make any sense for me... the art is kinda erratic, and i mean that i couldn`t tell the age of the main character, nor the age of the other characters... i remember there was once a young girl giving herself to the main character and i was like "WTF, already loli? o_O"... not to mention the elf-like ears... or maybe it`s just me being nit-picky?

anyways, since you rate it that high, why not give it a second chance? a good review, thanks for the suggestion...

"War... Revenge... Maybe that's enough reason I'm all alone, I think. Fofr now. And withi me is the black berserker rage... And only that... Will keep me on my feet. As I head towards you... Pressing on."--> Guts from the manga BERSERK...

Re: Ubel Blatt

Thank you.

I think your comments about the art are quite accurate. There are reasons for his choices, that i won't get into because of spoilers, but a lot of the characters do look young. Unusually so for a Seinen.

As for the plot not making sense. I would guess you only read the first few chapters, it keeps the true plot a bit of a mystery at first. Read a little further and i think you will be impressed, it all comes together quite nicely. Then the real story begins.

Re: Ubel Blatt

well, yeah, i wasn`t talking about the plot when i said it wasn`t making any sense, i meant the series as a whole... that`s the main reason i didn`t say anything about the plot, `cuz i haven`t read enough to shape up an 100% accurate overall idea, so yeah...

"War... Revenge... Maybe that's enough reason I'm all alone, I think. Fofr now. And withi me is the black berserker rage... And only that... Will keep me on my feet. As I head towards you... Pressing on."--> Guts from the manga BERSERK...

Re: Ubel Blatt

Thanks for the correction. I always thought that name seemed a little off.

"Evil Sheet" would make much more sense. I don't speak much German, that was just the translation on the wiki page. As for the umlaut, i realize it's spelled with one, sadly i have no idea how to type that(no button on my keyboard for that).

Re: Ubel Blatt

you just need to use the correct alt + numpad combination, in my case it's easier cus I got a dutch keyboard and I just have to type " + u, which is great ^^ layout is exactly the same as a US keyboard anyways cheers for the review

Re: Übel Blatt

Don't know if anybody still cares but it seems "Übel Blatt" was intended to mean "Evil Blade" even though it really doesn't mean that.

From the the posts I've read from those who speak german as their native tongue, all seem to agree that "Übel Blatt" just doesn't make all that much sense in german. "Üble Klinge" seems to be closer to what he meant. The generally accepted theory as to why this is would be that the author thought "Blatt", probably taken from the german word for a saw blade "Sägeblatt", sounded cooler and said to himself "Screw it, i'm going with this word". Or maybe he used google translator and picked the word he liked the most with little regard to the actual meaning.

So i guess "Evil Blade", which in retrospect fits the plot well, seems to have been what the author intended the title to mean and in his defense i too think the name "Übel Blatt" sounds cool whether or not it makes sense to a person who speaks german.

Re: Übel Blatt

Yay, I can write "ü" too, lol.

I like this manga, at most times at least. Sometimes the righteousness obsession of the hero just annoys me but it is a fine manga nevertheless.

Btw, I cant understand why some mangakas are so into using foreign words in their mangas. Cant they think of original names anymore? Bleach using spanish, this manga german, I have seen some manga using italian. Most mangakas use english anyway. I just dont think it contributes to those mangas in any way.

Things not going you way?You pick up your toys and go home.That is it?

Re: Übel Blatt

The 1TrueSensei approves of this review lol. I just "discovered" this manga about two weeks ago, and it's already one of my faves on Onemanga. Despite the high loli-content which usually puts me off a manga within the first few chapters, this story's plot is good enough to make me look past that. This is definitely one of those stories I'm looking forward to keeping up with.

Re: Übel Blatt

Personally, I'm willing to cut the authors some slack in terms of foreign language skills... I mean there are plenty more ridicules English/Spanish attempts for phrases/titles in various work that it's just not something I'd hold against Shiono.

I'm especially impressed with his background stories at the end of the tanks. I mean... WOW... it reminds me of reading the appendix of Lord of the Rings. The writings, which is mainly background story and culture of this fantasy world, showed me how much effort he placed in his work.